"Recently, we released the Android version of Meridian, our platform for building location-based apps. We didn't use one of these 'Cross Platform!' tools like Titanium. We wrote it, from scratch, in Java, like you do in Android [...] So, we rolled up our sleeves, downloaded the Android SDK, and got to work."

I agree, but I cannot shake the feeling that the article is a bit too negative in tone about Android, when if you look at the content it comes out a lot better than iOS.

I mean, for the author Eclipse apparently was a bit of a hassle while he already felt comfortable in Xcode, so obviously that all depends on what you're used to.

The Android emulator is slow, that's true, but not only can you launch an Android app on a real phone quite fast, it's also much easier than on iOS because you don't have to deal with certificates and stuff before you are even allowed to run your app on a real device.

Finally his negative point about Android's XML layouts:

It’s a bit like HTML, except it’s not HTML.

You should try opening an iOS xib file in a text editor for fun sometime. It's also XML, only completely human unreadable.

Anyway, as you can probably tell I vastly prefer Android development. And I too got started with iOS as my first mobile platform (although not my first programming experience).